Art&Access
by Rachel Vincent, Nicolas Held, Alex Kaliberdine
When one considers New York City art, there are countless facets that come to mind. The museums, the Broadway and off-Broadway theaters, the galleries and the major venues like Lincoln Center and the Metropolitan Opera House, as well as the subway performers, the graffiti, the street musicians. Art means very different things to everyone, a SoHo painter and an Upper East Side resident have two very different concepts of what constitutes art. It is not our goal to define the boundaries of what art is, that is impossible.
Our goal is to discover the ”who’s” behind the art. Who really goes to the opera and the theater? Who appreciates the art of the subways and the streets? Who isn’t aware of New York City art at all, be it because they cannot afford to or because they choose not to?
We caught this man working with the United Homeless Organization a little off guard, but he told us in essence that the homeless of New York City have far more to worry about than art.
Many of the people we attempted to interview either refused to speak to us or wouldn’t allow us to videotape them. The people we spoke to all had the same general consensus, however- they didn’t think that the homeless contributed very much to the arts, and the more well-off persons all said that they themselves appreciated art in some way.
But do human beings ever lose their most basic appreciation and need for some form of expression and art?
Free art absolutely exists in New York City, probably in a greater magnitude than most of the other cities in America. The renovation and decoration of the subways (covered by Alice and Diana in the Visual Art- Subway Art section) is a prime example, as are the statues and murals gracing the city’s many parks, alongside the graffiti covered walls of buildings. And so everyone does have access to art, whether it be a public display or a private gallery.
Art is being created all the time in New York- it is a very culturally driven city. To say that people from every walk of life and every sector of society don’t contribute to art’s creation would be inaccurate.
We tend to think of the homeless as falling into one of a few categories- mentally handicapped, drunk or addicted to drugs, or some other form of affliction to society. But here in the city, a homeless woman (her status was confirmed by the author of the blog this information was obtained from, he saw her later that night sleeping in her lawn chair) sits in Central Park and creates art.
The majority of the homeless people in the city are not the men sleeping on the sidewalk at noon but families; nearly half of the homeless of New York City are children, many of whom live within the shelter system. These are people who have already organized (The United Homeless Organization, www.picturethehomeless.org) for civil rights, housing rights and in demand for employment- but not for art.
In research for homeless art programs in New York City, I came across a very interesting program called the Cultural Arts program for Children Living in Temporary Housing. It began in 1988 as a way to provide homeless children with opportunities to experience the vast amount of art existing within the city. During holiday sessions, classes are held at a cultural institution, and during the school year children attend one event every week after school. In addition to this, the program provides a meal for the kids during the sessions, which is, in many cases, why the kids begin attending in the first place.
For More Information, visit http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1098/is_n3-4_v21/ai_12290673
Homes for the Homeless is another outreach program which is aiding the homeless in accessing art. Operating through the Shelter Program at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, the program provides 15 weeks of sessions geared towards young mothers with young children. It provides an early childhood literacy program, arts and music activities and a hot lunch. It not only aids children in preparing for pre-school and elementary school but helps the mothers tremendously as well by providing them with a social worker and a writing workshop.
For more information about this program, visit http://www.cmom.org/about/aboutsp/hthp.htm
The site for the shelter program has examples of poems written by the participants. A few examples from the 2005-2006 Shelter Program group from http://www.cmom.org/about/aboutsp/spoetry.htm are below:
On Fire
I used to feel like a curtain, so plain and lonely, but now I’m on fire just trying to make my moves to a positive place and keep me and my kids happy.
I used to feel like a bucket was over my head and someone was
kicking me around but now I’m a bird and I just fly into my sky…
––Lindsey
Time Used to Move So Slowly
Time used to move so slowly. Now it goes so fast it’s like I have no time to do anything. I feel like there’s a big hammer bangin’ over my every thought. I feel like I’m running down an alley of unfulfilled thoughts.
Time is like a wire wrapped around my neck cuttin’ off all air, stranglin’ the crap out of me. I just wish it was easy. I wish time could be soothing, moving softly like a cloud in the sky.
––Cristie
Before We Got Here
Before we got here I was dumb and in love––
Before we got here life was easy,
I depended on others, promises were made.
Before we got here I was scared of being on my own––not no more.
Before I got here I never wanted to be lonely.
Do you want to be lonely now?
Before we got here I was unhappy in my relationship, I was lost.
Before we got here there were so many people in my business,
people in my face.
Before we got here goals were in reach, our bedrooms were bigger.
Before we got here I didn’t take life so seriously, not til
I started living on my own.
Before we got here I didn’t know there were people in my situation,
I didn’t take public transportation,
I was less focused,
I lived in a fairytale, everything was just put on a platter.
Before we got here I had a comfortable bed, a queen-sized bed.
Before we got here what I thought was gold was gold-plate.
–– Group Poem: Tamika, Chaundoria, Indira, Ericka, Latiesha, Tara, Michalyn
The previous were all written by the mothers attending the program- women who had finally found a voice they had perhaps forgotten or never knew they had through art and creative expression.
In conclusion, art is in abundance in New York City, and although with a cursory look at the issue it may seem that the homeless are apathetic towards art in New York City, they are not. People, no matter what their demographic, their income, or their status, all hold some sort of appreciation and need for expression, whether through music, writing, visual art or dance. Art in many different incarnations is accessible in some way to everyone in the city, and it is largely because of the efforts of outreach groups that art is provided to the homeless.
-Rachel Vincent